Several times during practice sessions the commentators have said the teams need to be careful on choosing the gear ratios on Friday night as they are they locked in for the weekend. They have speciffically mentioned it when Friday has been wet and cars haven’t been able to run at top speed. And at high speed circuits like Monza where last year Hamilton wasn’t able to overtake Schumacher because he hit the limiter in the DRS zone down the pit straight.

If this is correct how come RBR were able to change ratio’s just because the car was taken out of parc ferme conditions, the cars are not in parc ferme during FP3?

@w-k What happens is that generally, teams have to submit gear ratio selection sheets 2 hours after FP2 ends. However, starting in the pitlane means your car is freed of this restriction, and is freed of parc ferme, allowing you setup changes.

Parc ferme starts from the moment you roll out of the pits in Qualifying. If you were to roll out in Q1 with 2 minutes left, then that means for the first 18 minutes, you are not in parc ferme yet. But starting from the pit lane pulls you out of this, meaning you’re then no longer in parc ferme.

Very well said @raymondu999 , That is the reason why RBR was able to change the gear ratios on Vettel´s RB8 and the downforce settings, thus ensuring he was going to be able to make better use of the DRS and not hit the limiter so he could overtake … Smart move on their part but seriously killed his “achievement”….

@catracho504 well to be fair – it was either they killed his achievement, or killed his result. If he had stayed with his original setup, the physics would dictate that he would not be able to overtake anyone except for the 3 slow teams.

You could but you would certainly start from teh pitlane W-K…. The rations chosen for Practices are caried over to Quali…. if you change them just before quali then you automatically start from pit lane…

@raymondu999
Fair enough but then, I see no real merit in what he did… seriously… By being allowed to change settups it really isn´t a punishment to start from pit lane is it?? I mean… he had a fast car to begin with… changing ratios and downforce levels ensured him extra speed thus, ensuring easy passes using DRS!

Gear ratios are declared two hours after FP2.
FP3 is NOT under parc ferme conditions. But you cannot change gears.
After start of Qualifying until start of race the cars are in parc ferme condiions, but you can change the cars spec if the team takes it out, but must start from pit lane.

Even the new teams would be able to catch up to the back of the field from the pit lane. Because if you hadn’t noticed the cars are spreading out and therefore the back markers are going slower than normal.

@W-K That’s basically the situation, yes. To be fair – anyone can choose to start from the pits. Even Hamilton could on Sunday. But it makes it much more dangerous, much harder, and you compromise your race by being in traffic.

@catracho504 They gave him additional straight line speed, but it meant that his car was (over a lap) slower. Look at the times – on soft tyres that were 7 laps younger than Alonso’s medium tyres, he was only 0.1 quicker than Alonso

It might be better if F1 was to be the same as some other formula’s where a pit lane start is one lap down

Totally agree with you on that sir! Then it would be a suitable punishment underfueling a car!! I would make everybody think about it twice!

What I think was appaling was this guy ted of SKY suggesting that RBR should´ve made it back to pit lane to not arouse suspition!! I mean seriously!!! What are you saying, that they should have made it back and cheat??? Or did he really think the FIA would turn the other way while they completed the liter of fuel??? That guy really is a tool!!

Slower teams don’t need to start from the pitlane to make changes. They already know they are starting last, so they do their best to set the car up as good as possible.

Red Bull doesn’t. They try to set the car up to be on pole and control the race there. It’s a massive difference in terms of setup if you start on pole than in the middle of the pack. The difference is where they are supposed to qualify.

Adrian Newey said (in that clip where he’s driving the Leyton House and the RB6) that their simulations tell them that the fastest laptime is achieved with maximum downforce and not su much top speed. So they do it that way, to ensure a good place in qualifying. That’s why Webber often struggles to overtake everyone else, cuz he’s often behind Vettel, and he gets in the mix with other cars and get stuck. Surely that’d had happened to Vettel had they not changed their gear ratios and downforce levels.

What it is interesting is how fast he was on race day. This car isn’t as good as the RB7 in terms of qualy pace compared to the others, so they must be scratching their heads about what to do now, now they know their car is very competitive on sundays with the longer gear ratios and the different downforce settings. Surely they can’t risk it and aim for pole no matter what, and if they miss, the get stuck behind others.

@raymondu999
Agreed but that way they ensured severe damage limitations! That is my point! Add to that that “luckily” every safety car worked for him and that puts a serious dent into his “achievement”!!

Why is it so hard to believe that the safety cars weren´t provoked?? That last one with Webber really made me think as well as it must´ve made others think! Everybody buried Alonso in 2008 for Singapore but now it´s unthinkable??

@catracho504 while this really should be a discussion for another thread…

What happens is the FIA fuel sample actually is not done for all 24 cars. At each race weekend, there is a random selection (If I remember correctly, either 5 or 6 cars are selected) of cars that are tested. So in fact, if Lewis in Barcelona, or Vettel in Abu Dhabi, had just driven back into the pits calmly and acted like nothing happened, then maybe the FIA might not have checked their fuel, and they could’ve started where they qualified.

I don’t know about which cars were selected in Barcelona, but I know for a fact that it turns out, in fact – that Vettel was not selected for the fuel sample in Abu Dhabi. Had he just calmly drove back and acted normal, in reality, nothing would have happened to him. Whether or not that is the right thing to do, is a different issue. I’m just discussing the facts in this post.